As Earth Day approaches, GFI intern Isabella Lyle-Durham shares her thoughts on the global environmental landscape in both the Global Lens 2013 film SHYAMAL UNCLE TURNS OFF THE LIGHTS and reality…

On April 22nd, Earth Day, we dedicate 24 hours, as a global society, to thinking about our physical future. And sometimes that “thinking” means we step away from the rhetoric, and into films like SHYAMAL UNCLE TURNS OFF THE LIGHTS—shining a light not just on what we can do to preserve the earth, but also on how what we’re currently doing may not be working and may actually contradict the idea of ‘conservation.’

“Beijing Flickers looks deep into the psyches of this generation that doesn’t know quite what it wants, and finds at least flickers of hope that they can, together, make their own future.” – Vancouver International Film Festival

The accolades continue to roll in as Global Lens 2013 enters the Spring! This month in the spotlight: BEIJING FLICKERS, which recently played at both Chapman University’s Busan West Film Festival and the Miami International Film Festival, where it won the Miami Future Cinema Critics Award.

NINAH’S DOWRY (Cameroon), SO MUCH WATER (Uruguay) and WHEN I SAW YOU (Palestine/Jordan) are just a few titles among a host of Global Lens films and grant recipients keeping our news feed a-buzzing…

The buzz just won’t stop. From nominations, to awards, to screenings in festivals across the globe, GFI grant recipients and Global Lens films are continuing to impress in a big way. Check out the most recent news:

Angelica Dongallo speaks to students and teachers at last year’s screening

World Cinema Week is just around the corner, and with it comes our second annual educational screening with our neighbors at Ninth Street, TILT…

As March draws to a close, it’s impossible not to notice a change in the San Francisco air. The weather is getting warmer, the birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, and here at The Global Film Initiative we know that this can only mean one thing: World Cinema Week is right around the corner!

Joanne Parsont, Director of Education at the San Francisco Film Society, reflects on SFFS’ incomparable artist in residence, Ashim Ahluwalia…

Each time the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) invites an international filmmaker to participate in our Artist in Residence program (funded this winter by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences), there’s a mix of eager anticipation and wary uncertainty. We’ve seen their films, but what will they actually be like in person? Will they take full advantage of their two weeks in San Francisco? Will they be any fun to hang out with? For our latest Artist in Residence (and, really, all of our previous residents), the answer to both of these questions is a resounding “yes.”

Acquisitions and Granting Manager Angelica Dongallo recounts the sights and sounds of Mexico’s prestigious film festival…

Guadalajara: home of mariachis, tequila country, and the Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara (FICG). I arrived in the “valley of stones” during the wee hours of the day of opening night activities, and contemplated the next few days’ prospects as we drove through the speckled-lit streets of the sleeping city.

Rob Avila talks with director Suman Ghosh about leading a double life…

In the United States he’s a respected economist and academic. In India, he is better known as the award-winning movie director of such critical and box-office successes as Podokkhep (Footsteps), Dwando (The Conflict), and Nobel Chor (Nobel Thief), starring Mithun Chakraborty. But as the Calcutta native discusses below, his early passion for films grew up right alongside his doctoral work in economics at Cornell University through eye-opening studies conducted concurrently in Cornell’s film department.